The Darkest Hour
by me1528
Summary: A more depressing/sad look at the Pendragon series. What if everything had gone wrong?


**Hi Mark! Things on Ibara are great! Turns out, there isn't really that much of a problem here! I know Saint Dane arrived on the territory, but other than that, I haven't caught a glimpse of him. Don't know how long that will last, but I'm rolling with it. So then I went onto the surface and you won't believe it. The whole place is like one big tropical resort! Ibara is an island in the middle of the ocean. The flume cave came out in the middle of the beach with a little trap door hiding it. As soon as I exited the door, a breeze of warm air hit me; it was the perfect temperature. Not too hot, not too cold; Perfect. I grinned to myself and glanced around. The sea was like what everyone described beautiful views as. It shown a deep azure blue and gently lapped the shore coast. The coast itself was formed from a weird kind of white sand with a mix of black grains mixed in giving it a salt and pepper look.**

-A room flickered into Bobby's mind. It was cold, unforgiving, like a dungeon cell. His body sat in a chair facing a wall with a small window protected by bars. Bobby's body took a ragged breath; it looked starved and on the verge of collapse. He had long since given up trying to stay conscious. He was strapped into the chair by two cuffs on each wrist with small spikes in them to keep him in pain. His body shuddered again and Ibara came back into focus-

**I took my first step down the beach. With a shock, I realized there hadn't been any clothes in the flume for me to change into. Maybe they wore stuff that was similar to Second Earth. I shrugged to myself in thought and kept going down the beach. To my right, trees shot up into the horizon like a tropical rainforest. There must've been a pretty rainy season here to foster that kind of growth because the trees had to shoot at least one hundred feet into the air. The leaves displayed colors in such a vivid fashion I would hardly believe them possible; the leaves displayed blues and greens like I never would have believed. If only you guys and Loor could have been here.**

-NO! Screamed another part of Bobby's mind. More images came into focus, this time not of the room, but of a place on Zadaa. He could at least tell it was on Zadaa because of the shifting sands. The image zoomed in until Bobby could make out a massive pyramid built in the step fashion of the Aztecs. This thought flickered onto the top of the pyramid where Loor and Bobby both stood. Despite the oddness of this image, Bobby's mind couldn't help but think of how stunning Loor looked in her warrior gear; just a leather top and short leather bottoms. That was, until he realized he wore the same thing. They must be about to fight. The picture panned around, showing the base of the pyramid. The bottom swelled with DADOs from Qullain. The Bobby in the picture yelled something to Loor and passed her one of the two dado killing batons from at their feet before grabbing one himself. Then, calm as the eye of the storm, they sat waiting. Once the first wave of DADOs reached the top, the two lashed out, fighting in a unison that was near telepathic. Together they destroyed the DADOs one by one. Suddenly, a DADO grabbed onto Loor's leg from beneath the top tier of the pyramid. With a gasp and a yelp of surprise, she was dragged off the top and into the writhing mass of DADOs. With a cry of misery, Bobby jumped from the top and into the crowd fighting with all his might. His mind recognized a pang of sadness and-

**I kept walking. Oh well, I'm sure I could bring her back her someday after all this was over. I seemed to walk a mile before anything changed. The land in the forest started to become clearer. Maybe I was starting to come to a village or something. I whistled a light tune, just to keep myself busy. After another mile, I looked into the forest again and noticed a path leading into its depths. Figuring this couldn't be natural, I took it and started to head up. The interior of the forest was amazing! Exotic animals that resembled birds of paradise from Earth graced the branches of the odd colored trees. I was so distracted by these trees; I almost missed the village that opened up in a clearing in front of me. From what I could tell, it was nothing special. Wooden huts were the main housing and the walls seemed to be made out of bamboo. Straw covered the top of them to create a type of roof. Despite these ancient building practices, I saw what looked like electricity flicker in the window of one of the houses. Man, it reminded me of the Milago village after the Bedowan moved in.**

**-**Another image flickered into Bobby's head. Would they not leave him alone? He needed to finish riding this journal to Mark and Courtney! A bloody and beaten Bobby stumbled out of the cave that housed the flume of Denduron. He was still garbed in the warrior clothing of Zadaa and still clutched the DADO killing rod he had last seen himself with. The Bobby heaved himself with a massive effort and managed to move himself further down the mountain. Whether a villager or something other noticed him was unknown to this vision, but Alder somehow found Bobby laying down in the mud halfway down the mountain. With a groan of grief, Alder picked the Bobby up off the ground and made his way down the mountain. Many times he nearly tripped, but he managed to make it to the bottom of the village. Several men in Bedoowan armor approached them bearing swords. A shouting match soon occurred, in his half conscious state, Bobby couldn't tell what exactly was being said, but he could make out that they were declaring Alder a traitor. Alder roared with frustration and gently set Bobby down before charging the men. Despite his valiant effort, Alder was slain and his corpse was moved from the nearly unconscious Bobby's view.-

**From within the foremost hut, a boy no older than fifteen stepped out. Hesitantly, he stepped towards me. "Who are you?" he asked. As he said this, he glanced back to the hut where a small girl now peeked over one of the windowsills.**

"**My name is Bobby; I come to help you guys." I said in as gentle of a voice as possible. I held my hands out in the universal I'm-not-going-hurt-you kind of way. The boy did seem to relax a little , but not much. He just kept glancing back at the hut where the young girl waited.**

"**O-ok." The boy said with yet another glance back. "I'll take you to the village leader." He added. He turned on his heel and started to walk up a slope. He glanced back to make sure I was following him. Dang these people were weird! Nothing like you or Courtney, Mark.**

-Finally, the image of Bobby fell back into the station in Second Earth. This time something was different, Saint Dane followed him out of the flume. Bobby glanced back in terror and started to run away. The figure made it out of the subway station and to the street. Saint Dane seemed to be just walking behind him, like he had all the time in the world. Somehow, starving, broken and fatigued, the Bobby made it to Mark's house. What awaited him at the front door was neither Mark nor Courtney, just Saint Dane. "So sorry about your friends Pendragon!" He sneered. He shouldered his way past Bobby as Bobby stood shocked at the picture before him. Both of his friends lay on the floor, with a full CSI unit hovering around the room. His two best friends in the entire world lay dead on the floor.-

I GET IT! Bobby's mind rang out. He stared down at his lap in the dungeon cell. Tears trickled their way down his cheek. This was the end. All of the other travelers were dead, Mark and Courtney were dead. There was no hope left. He started out the window blankly as if he couldn't comprehend what was going on. There was no more Loor to help him through his travelers. Nevermore would he have her strong, unfeeling exterior to help him through the hard times. No more would there be any Alder, the goofy and good natured guy he could always rely on. Mark was long since gone; his best friend in the entire world killed by a random homicide. Included in this number was Courtney Chetwyne, the love of his life. Without these, there wasn't even a point in living. No point existed for him to be anymore, Halla held nothing for him. From behind him, a voice started. "Goodbye lead traveler." Saint Dane growled out. From behind him, a gun clicked as the bullet cycled into the chamber. The sound of trigger being pulled rang out in the small room, and then nothing.

_Not quite as dark of sad as I wanted it to, atleast from my perspective. May be worse for some of you guys. Anyways, this was the result of work from 1:30 -2:00 am and I just felt like posting it. I may revisit this some day and actually make it good, but I don't know when. I do want to spend more time on each of the people's deaths for sure. It just didn't seem dramatic enough for me. Also, I know I didn't spell some of the territory names right, but this is just because I haven't read the books in a while. Another problem that I have with this exposition is Bobby's final death. It seems too abrupt. I think he needs to be sadder in it, and reflect more about the past. Maybe this was already done in the proceeding paragraphs, but I don't know, just my thoughts. Again, I don't even really consider this complete. I'd like to finish it up, but my story motivation comes in shots, I either feel like writing or I don't. Guess the next time I'm feelin it will be spent on this. In reality, I would go back and reread it to make sure it was good enough, but after writing one draft I just really don't have the drive to do it. A large problem with this is my excessive use of "with a" and stuff like that. I just can't seem to think of anything else to replace this and I don't know why. It really bugs me. I would show this to my friends but the majority of them hate reading and haven't even read Pendragon, so that's out. Oh well, hope you enjoyed, read and review please._


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